Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 - DigitalVersus

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Intel Core 2 Duo E7300

STORES	£
Dell (UK)	114.15
Dell Business	131.27
Dell (UK)	223.25
Dell Business	256.74


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Specifications
Socket	775
Number of cores	2
Clock rate	2.66 GHz
Cache	3 MB
Thermal Design Power	65 W
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Technology	45 nm
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Régis Jehl
Updated: November 06, 2008 - Test date: October 27, 2008

E7000 vs. E8000

Intel launched its Core 2 Duo E7000 line in April 2008 with this CPU, the E7200, although the processors in the earlier E8000 series are more powerful.

Both sets of processors are dual-core, but the E8000s have 6 MB of cache in place of the 3 MB on this line, and a bus running at 333 MHz in place of 266 MHz here.

The E7000 series is engineered at 45 nm, allowing it to have a Thermal Design Power of just 65 W.

Although the Core 2 Duo E7xxx series is marketed as a more affordable version of the E8xxx line, this E7300 is by no means an underperformer.

It's only 7.5% slower than the E8200 which runs at exactly the same speed but with twice as much cache.

Compare the Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 with the AMD Phenom X3 8650 and other CPUs in our
Product Face-Off

The difference is only just about noticeable when playing 3D games, where the E7300 had a perfectly decent framerate of 34 fps against the E8200's 38 fps in our test on World in Conflict.

For editing 2D and 3D video and images, though, it might be a better idea to switch to a four core CPU from Intel's Core 2 Quad line.

The clock speed equivalent of this E7300 and the E8200 is the Q8200, running at 2.66 GHz but outperforming both of the cheaper models by finishing our Photoshop test in just 3 minutes 33 seconds: the E7300 needed 5 minutes 17 seconds and the E8200 5 minutes 5 seconds.

Energy consumption is a little bit lower than on the E8xxx range, and our test PC needed 155 W of power while the CPU was idle and 196 W while it was working at 100%.

For comparison, the E8200 used 165 W and 207 W respectively in the same conditions.

Pluses

Good compromise between performance and energy use

Minuses

Not as powerful as a quad-core processor for demanding applications

The E7000 are decent dual-core processors that are worthwhile for relatively demanding users. For more powerful tasks, though, they just can't keep up with the latest quad-core CPUs.